


The Stakes

by Island_of_Reil



Category: The Eagle | The Eagle of the Ninth (2011)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Military, Begging, Biting, Bondage, Canon Era, M/M, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Rope Bondage, Scratching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-05
Updated: 2013-04-05
Packaged: 2017-12-07 14:17:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/749465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Island_of_Reil/pseuds/Island_of_Reil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Again, Marcus and Esca as imagined in Sineala's military AU "Chosen Man." Esca wants to tie Marcus down. The idea frightens Marcus... and arouses him. Eventually he says yes. The tags will tell you everything else you need to know.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Stakes

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Chosen Man](https://archiveofourown.org/works/681763) by [Sineala](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sineala/pseuds/Sineala). 



> This story is set within the AU of Sineala's ["Chosen Man"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/681763/chapters/1250571), an unspecified while after the events of her fic have taken place. It is posted with her permission — and encouragement, for which again I am highly grateful. Thanks also to Carmarthen for answering some historical questions for me.
> 
> Other than that Marcus and Esca are together, and that the fic makes a few allusions to the "first time" scene in "Chosen Man," there are no major spoilers that I can think of for Sineala's story.

They lie together, sated and bliss-stunned, eyes closed, skin against skin doing the work of words. Esca, as he often does, has nestled his head into the angle between Marcus's neck and right shoulder. Marcus's cheek rests against the crown of his lover's head.

The soft waves of sleep have begun to lap at Marcus, and he's considering how little he wishes to get up to douse the lamp, or to ask Esca to do so, when he hears Esca speak his name, tentatively.

"Mm?"

"There's something I would ask you."

"Anything, _mi optio_." In public, he leaves off the _mi_ , but in private the wordplay has become Marcus's preferred term of endearment. Though it was at first a great amusement to Esca, Marcus now enjoys seeing how the phrase can bring a loving smile, a flush of pride, or a shiver of desire to the man he has, in more than one way, chosen.

"It's… not a favor, quite. It's something I wish to do with you. To do _for_ you. As well as for me."

The hesitation in Esca's voice makes Marcus open his eyes and raise his head slightly. Esca had lifted his own to look at Marcus. Though there's not the same sharp anxiety in his eyes that there was when Marcus first, and after so long, came to him by the side of the stream, there is trepidation. And there is desire, if not at the moment full-blown.

"You wish to fuck me in the _praetentura_ of the garrison after all?" Marcus says, straight-faced.

Esca shakes with laughter that he barely voices. The idea was at first a taunt borne of the most horrific of moments between them, but that was long ago. It's a jest that Marcus can now make, and Esca take, without either of them flinching.

"I'm sorry to disappoint you, but no, that wasn't what I had in mind." He sobers. "Marcus, there is something… something some lovers do, when one trusts the other enough to submit to him. The idea may excite you. Or frighten you."

Marcus frowns. "Tell me, Esca."

Esca takes a breath, then continues, watching Marcus's face carefully.

"The one will bind the other, hand and foot, limbs wide apart, and then … toy with him. Caressing, teasing, striking, biting, scratching, sucking, making him suck, making him plead, fucking him — whatever he wishes and the other has consented to."

Marcus doesn't reply. He's torn between a surge of lust that lifts his cock slightly from his body — so soon again, like a lad half his age — and an icy fear tendriling into his belly. Which of the two makes his heart race more, he is not sure.

Esca can neither see nor feel Marcus harden anew, but he can feel Marcus's slight shudder, and his voice softens. "The one who's bound may change his mind at any moment — say, if he suddenly becomes afraid, or the other does something to him he mislikes. Sometimes they agree upon a signal beforehand, such as a word, that obliges the other one to stop, perhaps to loose the bonds."

Marcus remains silent. He wishes he could tell Esca that he's as aroused by this idea as he is terrified by it, but his throat is tight and his breath short.

"Marcus, we needn't do this if you don't feel you can. We certainly will _not_ be doing this tonight" — with a chuckle — "or even soon. It's still rather cold. I've a place in mind, but it has no hypocaust, and it's a bit of a ride. I suppose there'd be a theatrical appeal in surrounding you with a dozen flaming braziers, but making up some excuse to borrow them would be a piece of theatre in and of itself, not to mention bringing them to this place — and all those coals would be costly. One or two braziers, I think we could manage."

Marcus breathes for a moment, then says, "Esca, I… I cannot say I am not… intrigued. But… yes, I must think on this."

Esca nods. And adds, deadly serious now, "I do not want you to agree to this unless it is something you also want to do, and want wholeheartedly. Not simply because you wish to please me." His voice sharpens. "Do you understand, _mi Marce_? I cannot find pleasure in it if you do not."

Marcus's heart swells. He has no idea why the gods put Esca in his path, he cannot fathom now how stupid he was to have rejected — many times — so precious a gift, and he cannot estimate, even in his own mind, his gratitude that his own foolishness is not the strongest force in the world.

"I understand." He bends forward and brushes his lips against Esca's. Esca returns the kiss with passion but, for the moment, no serious intent.

"I would ask you one more thing, Marcus," Esca says, still soberly.

"Yes, _mi optio_?"

Esca's serious expression breaks into a broad and almost feline grin. "That, tonight, you be the one to get out of this lovely warm bed and douse the light. You won't deny me _this_ , will you?"

 

As Esca says, the early spring is yet cold, but Marcus has grown accustomed to much colder. Etruria would be warm by now, of course, but, north of the Wall, mere hints of mildness in the air seem like benedictions, and the lengthening days give them and their men heart. The land of his childhood has no bitter winds, no ice or snow, no late afternoons plunged into darkness, but then it has no such things to give a sweet keenness to the eventual softening of the air and the opening of the earth. Much the way, Marcus thinks, his pleasure is honed when Esca bites Marcus's lower lip, or grips and pulls his hair as he would do with reins.

A month passes. Their days, and the days of their men, are busy but unremarkable: Marcus reports to the garrison, provides orders to Esca; Esca gives them in turn to their men. They watch the woods, they speak with travellers, they clean their armour, they sharpen their weapons, they spar for practice, they mend their tents, they fetch water. Whatever the reason, the Votadini aren't aggressing against them for now, and there is neither sign nor word of Caledonii.

At night, in his tent, Marcus kneels for Esca. Esca commands Marcus to take his cock into his mouth. He sometimes spends down Marcus's throat, sometimes instead pushes him down onto hands and knees and fucks him, or down onto his back instead so that he might seize Marcus by the knees and take him as a man does a woman, or pins him down and rides him, holding Marcus's cock tightly inside him. He whispers words of love, words of praise, words of control.

Sometimes he takes Marcus's cock into his own mouth, but, in this too, he is master: He makes Marcus tell him in words as explicit as brothel mosaics where he wants Esca to caress or lick or even nip him, and how hard; he makes Marcus beg for these things, abjectly and whimperingly; he does not give Marcus leave to spend until Marcus is desperate, shaking, almost in pain. And, after Marcus does spend, Esca rises up on the bed and kisses him hard, so that Marcus tastes his own seed on Esca's lips.

One night, Esca holds his body above Marcus's, thrusting into him, pinning his wrists down to the bed behind his head, deliberately letting his muscle-ridged belly chafe against Marcus's painful hardness, watching his face, knowing that Marcus is a hair's breadth from spending. He hisses, blue fire lashing round the wide dark centres of his eyes, "It's a waste, _mi Marce_ , having to hold you down like this. Imagine what more I could be doing to you right now if I had you spread wide, with rope round your wrists and ankles…"

Marcus's blood roars and surges like the western ocean. He can't last — he cries out, feels himself trembling violently and spurting forcefully between their bodies. Esca watches, for the barest moment, with astonishment at what he has wrought, and then it takes him, too. Marcus's wrist-bones grind together under Esca's fingers as Esca, with his own hoarse cry, finds shuddering, draining, dizzying release inside his lover's body.

It's not unusual for them to lie unmoving for a long time afterward, but the air remains charged, and neither of them relaxes entirely.

Finally Esca speaks.

"You… seem to have liked that last idea."

On a sharply indrawn breath, Marcus says, shakily, "I suppose it would be futile to lie, wouldn't it?"

Esca says nothing, merely waits.

Marcus tenses; he knows Esca hopes for a response. Yes, it would be a lie to say that the idea of Esca binding him down and then doing what he will to him doesn't set him afire. It would also be a lie to say that, although he's teased himself with those images in his own mind — including other times when Esca has held him down, when Esca must have been imagining him the same way — he is utterly ready to be bound like a sacrifice and used like a slave, with no fear and no shame.

"Marcus." Esca's voice is solemn. "I will tell you again: _I will not do this unless you agree to it with your entire heart._ I want to, yes, and quite badly… but not just for my own pleasure. It's a gift I wish to give you. If you don't want it, or you simply can't bear what it would stir for you besides lust, it would be a gift ill given."

After Esca's words have died away, Marcus begins to speak, haltingly. "It is… I am not afraid of you. You know this. I trust you, with my heart and with my life. But… it's not unlike when I feared to kneel for you, to suffer for you, because of what that means to a Roman. Free men are not bound. Even if we have no fear of discovery, I don't know how it will feel to me, entirely, to actually _be_ bound."

Esca nods. "More or less what I surmised."

A thought occurs to Marcus. "Have you… done this before, to other men?"

"Just one, several years ago. An Alexandrian, stationed at Trimontium. We were lovers for a while, until he was transferred. It was his idea. He was… for want of a better way to put it, quite worldly, considerably more than I was, and utterly unconcerned with certain Roman mores." Esca chuckles. "A lion in battle, a lamb in my bed. I missed him quite a bit afterward."

This gnaws at Marcus, and it must be evident in his face, for Esca adds pointedly, "I didn't _love_ him, precisely, but I remember him very fondly, and I hope he's found another to command him as he likes. For that matter, I hope he's still alive, but I've never inquired." He pauses. "And, Marcus, I don't think less of you because you were born to honour those mores. You no longer let them hobble you, as you used to. And some of them are, indeed, honourable."

He brushes his lips against Marcus's throat. "If I'm patient enough to spend entire days in the same damned thicket, unmoving, I'm patient enough to wait for you to decide whether you want this or not. It need not even be this year. You are mine. We are here, and with fortune we'll be here for a long while. Think on it, but, please, do not tell me you wish it unless and until you are absolutely sure."

 

In the end, compared with how things had once between between himself and Esca, it does not take Marcus very long.

A bit short of three weeks, maybe. Three weeks of Esca's knowledge that he has lit a spark and that sparks can be kindled. Three weeks of telling Marcus, in the privacy of the tent, what he might do to his captive eagle; how the sight of Marcus, naked and bound, would leave Esca breathless and stone-hard; how he would make Marcus beg for everything, _everything_. Taunts of dominion as Marcus kneels, Esca's cock brushing the back of his throat; whispers of fire over their joined bodies, as Esca strives to bring Marcus closer to his edge, to carry him beyond it.

One night, as they lie panting and moist skinned, Marcus knows his answer, and, before he can second-guess himself, he gives it.

"You must... do that to me, and soon."

Esca has just lain his head down on his pillow. Now he lifts it again, eyes widening.

"Truly, Marcus?"

Marcus smiles. "Yes. Truly. I can't promise you an utter lack of fear, but… I want to do this. Wholeheartedly."

Esca returns a smile that makes Marcus think of the sun breaking over the eastern horizon. And then, as Esca's hand rises to brush his face in wonderment and gratitude, he thinks of the first time he ever knelt for Esca, and how Esca's voice shook with the same emotions. Marcus takes Esca's hand and presses it against his lips.

"We'll have to ask for a day's leave," Esca says, beginning to plan out loud. "I don't think two braziers will be missed much, now that the days are warmer. We may not even need both, although we'll need at least the one, I think. Other than that, wine, water, some food…" He grins wickedly. "Whatever else we need, I'll bring."

He leans over and kisses Marcus, hard.

 

The place Esca has in mind is a few hours' ride at a steady pace from the camp, but he tells Marcus no more than that. They have asked for, and received, a day's leave. When that day comes, the gods favor them with an uncloudy day and a tease of summer warmth. The air rings with the calls of blackbirds and skylarks; the breeze is heady with everything about them that unfurls from the earth and turns its face up to the sun.

They set out unarmoured and, other than a dagger apiece, unarmed. Each of their horses carries a brazier, a pouch of coals, a skin each of water and wine, and its rider's share of a light meal. Esca's mount carries two additional small bundles, unremarkable in shape. Marcus doesn't ask what they contain.

They speak little as they ride. Even were apprehension not a check on Marcus's tongue, Esca's enigmatic mien would dissuade him from saying overly much. He senses something at play that verges on the sacred, as when Esca slowly and reverently undressed him on the bank of the stream. Now he is to be bound and made into a plaything; compared with that, honouring the mood with a deferential silence seems an easy thing to do.

For much of the journey, they move over familiar territory, westward. Then Esca turns north, through dark, close woods that Marcus is not sure he has been in before. Though he has become a proficient scout under Esca's tutelage, after a few more turns he begins to feel a sense of dislocation. But he keeps his peace.

He is not sure how long they have been in the woods before Esca says, softly, "Almost there." The pit of Marcus's stomach suddenly feels full of doves trying to take flight.

Moments later, their horses stand in a modest clearing that is nearly filled by a small roundhouse.

Esca unmounts in one graceful motion and gestures for Marcus to follow suit, which he does. Still in silence, they take the bundles from their horses and carry them inside the structure, ducking under the low mantle of the doorway into a close, silent darkness. Marcus rests what he carries on the floor near the front curve of wall.

They pause for a moment to let their sight adjust. There doesn't appear to be much to see. Wattle-and-daub walls, the underside of a thatched roof, a low flat stone that was likely used as a seat. Whoever last lived here is long gone; there are no odours of people, of animals, of food, of fire, of anything much except dirt and straw.

Marcus watches the faint outline of Esca in the dimness, kneeling in the centre of the packed earthen floor, unwrapping the brazier he carried here.

"Should I unpack the other one?" Marcus asks. It feels odd, to speak now.

"No. This should suffice," Esca replies quietly, emptying the pouch of coals into the bowl. He takes flint and steel from another pouch. Briefly, there are the sounds of striking, and then the coals blaze, suffusing his angular features and fair hair with an eerie light against the dark interior of the house.

Then he looks up at Marcus, his intent expression unchanged, and Marcus suddenly finds it difficult to breathe.

Still kneeling, Esca picks up the larger of his two unexplained bundles and unwraps it. Inside is a pair of heavy cloaks.

"I wouldn't ask the man whose shield I bear to risk catching his death of chill on a dirt floor," Esca says. The corner of his mouth twitches faintly, but he recovers his solemnity. "And, should the weather change abruptly, we needn't ride back in misery. Help me lay these down, Marcus. I'll show you where."

He rises, turns, moves further away from the entrance, then stops and turns round again just before the furthest curve of the wall. The low sitting-stone is just to his right.

"Look down and to the left of me."

Marcus obeys.

"What do you see?"

He is able to make out four spots darker than the floor around them, set in a long, wide rectangle. He stares at them until his eyes admit more light, and they take shape for him.

"…Four iron stakes planted almost completely into the earth, each with a short crossbar near the top."

"You see right," Esca says. "What you can't see is that there are crossbars at the bottoms of the stakes as well, which will steady them against any… force pulling on them." He pauses. "Within the bounds of the stakes, we'll lay the cloaks, one atop the other."

Marcus knows why. He opens his mouth, nearly swallows his next breath.

He knows Esca is watching him, gauging his reaction. _Remember,_ Esca had told him the night before, _if you become afraid, no matter when that is, tell me, and I will stop._

He is nervous, but he isn't afraid. He loves Esca, he trusts Esca. Esca will let him come to no harm.

He reaches out for the edge of the first cloak. Between the two of them they hold it out as flat as possible and lay it down so that it nearly fills the space limned by the stakes. They do the same with the second, atop the first.

Esca walks toward the centre of the house again and picks up the second, smaller bundle. He brings it back to lay it atop the stone, then kneels to unwrap the contents. There is a coil of rope, as well as several short pieces cut from it, along with a flask of oil. He removes his dagger from his belt and lays it next to the rope.

And then he stands again and turns to Marcus.

Before Marcus can speak, Esca seizes him by the forearms and pulls him tight up against himself. The kiss is fierce, unrelenting, and deeply possessive. Esca's practiced fingers play softly against Marcus's scalp, about his ears, up and down his neck, knowing precisely where to awaken the nerves beneath. Marcus moans softly against Esca's mouth and, without thinking, thrusts his hips against Esca.

Esca responds by breaking off the kiss and, still gripping Marcus's forearms, pushing him backward to hold him out at arms' length. At Marcus's sharp cry of frustration, Esca's wet lips curve in a smile, and his eyes gleam.

"Nothing will happen quickly from here onward, _mi Marce_. We have all day, and we will take all day." He pauses. "It's growing warm in here. I think you might have need of your shield-bearer's assistance."

His breaths now coming rapidly, Marcus holds out his arms out waist-high, palms upturned and open, as if in supplication. It will not take very long for Esca to unlace his boots, for Marcus to step out of them and onto the cloak, for Esca to ease Marcus's braccae down his hips and legs and for Marcus to step out of those as well, to pull his tunic up and over his head, to place boots and garments well to the left of the makeshift bed.

And it does not.

Esca does not undress. He comes up to Marcus, takes his chin in his hand, and gives him the lightest, most ephemeral of kisses. His free hand drops between their bodies, and he trails a teasing finger down the rigid length of Marcus's cock. Marcus groans again, and Esca — slowly, deliberately, and deeply — sets his teeth into Marcus's lower lip.

"Today you will get," he hisses into Marcus's ear, "what I _choose_ to give you, and no more. Oh, you can _beg_ for what you want, but don't think that a mere _'please, Esca'_ will necessarily sway me. So long as we're here, I don't intend to give you anything easily."

And then he steps back and looks into Marcus's eyes with a glint of iron.

"Kneel for me." Barely above a whisper, still, but no less a command for it.

Marcus falls to his knees. The wool of the cloak is rough under his bare knees and shins, bringing back memory, emotion, excitement.

Esca's hand runs approvingly through his hair, forehead to back. "Good. Now lie down, supine. Stretch out your hands and feet until your wrists and ankles touch the stakes. They will."

And they do, precisely. Marcus wonders if Esca has measured him in his sleep, but it's a question that he will ask much, much later. If at all. At the moment — naked, outstretched, his left wrist in the hands of his kneeling lover, the roughness of rope pressing against and then tightening round it — he dares not say anything.

To the task of binding Marcus down, Esca brings his characteristic economy of movement and smoothness of skill. This, too, is intimidating — until Esca looks up from the second stake, into Marcus's eyes. "It should not happen, but if a hand or foot grows numb or cold — tell me, Marcus."

There's a note of apprehension in his voice, in his gaze. _Just one, several years ago._ Marcus realises he's not the only anxious one in the roundhouse, and he feels, amid his own apprehension and excitement, an easing of heart.

Finally Marcus is bound to the fourth and last stake, and Esca rises. He stares down at his handiwork, lips parted; with a sharp inhalation, he closes his eyes. The motion is subtle, too subtle for someone who doesn't know Esca to perceive and especially in the half-light of the brazier, but he is ever so slightly swaying on his feet. Marcus shivers in his bonds as though the surge of lust could jump to him like a spark.

Then Esca opens his eyes again and, with a smile that makes the hairs on Marcus's neck stand up, _drops_ , landing on hands and knees over Marcus, their mouths inches apart. He lowers his head as if for another kiss, but when Marcus lifts his, Esca moves backward, his grin wider, almost cruel.

He ducks his head again. When Marcus remains warily still, Esca draws the tip of his tongue across Marcus's lower lip. Almost reflexively, Marcus raises his head, to reprimanded by a new sharp bite to the lip Esca has just tantalised, and he moans.

"Remember, Marcus. You will get nothing easily today, not even a kiss."

Marcus flattens himself back against the cloak, his chest rising and falling rapidly.

Esca shifts to Marcus's right and kneels there, still smiling wickedly. He draws an inverted fingertip down the edge of Marcus's jaw, letting the nail scrape lightly along the skin. It is a light touch, somewhere between tickle and caress. The finger moves with excruciating slowness down Marcus's neck, over his chest, down his belly, which makes him squirm. It stops where Marcus's torso joins his right thigh, and then it begins to stroke back and forth in the crease, inches away from Marcus's swollen cock.

Marcus arches his back, thrusting into the air. Esca chuckles low in his throat but doesn't move his hand any closer to the part of Marcus that begs wordlessly for it. Instead, he traces light, idle patterns up and down Marcus's outer thigh, then his inner one. _Nothing will happen quickly from here onward._

"Esca..."

"Yes, Marcus?"

"Please…"

"Please… what?"

"Please. Touch me."

"I _am_ touching you, Marcus. Don't you like it?" Esca has begun to tease the inside of Marcus's other thigh, very high up, taking great care not to even slightly brush Marcus's cock or balls. Marcus continues to squirm, but he manages to keep himself from shifting the centre of his body closer to Esca's hand because, he knows, Esca will only back away from him completely and make him wait longer.

"Please… Esca, _please,_ touch my cock…"

"Oh. Like this?"

The fingernail glides over the little ridge just under the head. Marcus gasps and arches upward again, but, of course, Esca's hand is already gone.

"So greedy, you are. I was good enough to grant you that request, and already you're demanding more of me." His hand is running up Marcus's torso again, more roughly this time. Suddenly Marcus feels a thumb and forefinger close around his right nipple, a nail digging in hard. He yelps.

Esca is crouching over him again, still grinning. "Are you going to be good for me?"

"Yes… yes, Esca... I promise."

"You had best keep that promise, _mi Marce_."

He inclines his head, and Marcus feels a tongue swirling around the edge of his right ear, and the lobe sliding back and forth between teeth. He holds his breath, waiting for Esca to bite down, but that doesn't happen. What happens instead, while he is distracted, is that Esca presses his thumbnail hard into Marcus's other nipple and laughs, low and darkly, at the resulting cry.

Then he slides halfway down the right side of Marcus's body, keeping his weight off to the right. Marcus's right nipple disappears between his lips.

Marcus groans softly, feeling Esca's tongue and lips work at the minuscule jut of flesh. Before Esca, he never thought about whether he could take pleasure from a mouth at his breast, but now, only by mustering all the force of his will does he keep himself from writhing — or perhaps he writhes just a little — under the intense stimulation. Esca leans over to torment the other nipple with his mouth, splaying a hand against Marcus's left hip to anchor himself… and to stroke the shivering flesh there.

And then he continues to move downward, a straight line of … not even kisses, just the softest touches of his mouth, against Marcus's ribs and down his belly.

He stops at Marcus's smoothly shaven pubis and lays his cheek against it. He is still not touching Marcus's cock, but Marcus would swear he can feel Esca's breath against it.

And suddenly, hot, wet flesh is sliding over the engorged, straining head, enveloping it, and Esca is drawing his tongue back and forth against that exquisitely sensitive spot on the underside.

Marcus cries out sharply and arches his body hard and taut, like a bow, only to feel the tepid air of the roundhouse against the wetted skin of his pulsating cock. Esca is now again tormenting the indentation between Marcus's torso and his right thigh with the same feather-light touches of his mouth.

"Oh, gods… Esca, please, _please,_ I can't bear this…"

Esca rests his head on Marcus's hip and begins to lightly stroke the quivering valley he was just kissing. "This is what you wanted, Marcus," he murmurs. "I promised to stop if you became afraid. I didn't promise to stop for such a minor thing as you going out of your mind."

He turns his head to watch Marcus's face. He is still smiling, but more faintly; his eyes are huge and dark. They remain fixed on Marcus's as his hand moves leftward, cups Marcus's balls with the lightest of touches. Marcus is shaking with the effort not to writhe or thrust, his breath coming harsh and ragged.

"Very good," Esca whispers. He resumes softly stroking everywhere that finely tunes Marcus's nerves without gratifying them: hip, belly, outer thigh, inner thigh, all of which tremble at his touch. Marcus's eyes flutter closed — then fly open again as Esca's hand closes around the shaft of his cock, hard, precisely how he knows Marcus likes it.

_"Ohh!"_

Esca languidly slides the foreskin back and forth, up and down, repeatedly, and says nothing, just watches Marcus's expression. His own is rapt, almost drugged. Marcus's eyes follow the hypnotising rhythm of Esca's right hand on him, until he feels the tell-tale pressure, a sense of rush, of release being agonisingly near.

"Esca— I'm — _**oh—**_ "

But he does not spend, because Esca's fist suddenly closes, hard as iron, around his cock.

The inside of the house seems to tilt, to spin, and Marcus closes his eyes against it. His seed within him feels like a surging tide exhausting itself against a high seawall, and he groans miserably.

"No… oh, sweet Light… _why?!_ "

"Because," comes the hushed, steely reply, "I have not given you leave to spend, _mi Marce_."

It is not until the tide has subsided that Esca's hand slips away from Marcus's cock.

Marcus feels Esca's lips on his again; he tastes a salty trace of his own seed. He opens his mouth obediently, lets Esca's tongue fill it, but otherwise he remains quiescent, unspeaking, fearful of giving even inadvertent displeasure.

Esca shifts again to lie against Marcus's left side, right arm across Marcus's chest, cock pressing hard as a dagger through the braccae into Marcus's hip. "You're learning," he breathes against Marcus's cheek. "I promise you this: It will be _oh,_ so worthwhile when I finally let you spend."

Marcus's breathing had subsided slightly; now it grows louder and rougher again as Esca mouths his left ear, then finds with his lips the sensitive spots on that side of Marcus's neck and throat and clavicle. His free hand plays with one nipple, then the other, every so often inflicting a pinch, sometimes one right after the other, with no pattern or rhythm to serve as warning.

Marcus has been painfully hard many times before — what man hasn't? — but not like this, with an ache that burns bright and reverberates deep. He waits, hopes for Esca's mouth to begin to move downward across his body again. It doesn't happen, but before long Esca's palm is suddenly flat against his cock, which jumps savagely at the touch. He feels, rather than hears, Esca laugh.

"You know what you want me to do to you," Esca whispers. "You'll get none of it until you beg." He is caressing Marcus's cock lightly, far too lightly. Every nerve in Marcus's body seems to be in his cock right now. "Beg for me, Marcus. What do you want me to do?"

"I… I want…" Marcus trails off. He wants nothing more than to spend, and he doesn't much care how Esca makes him do it. But he has no idea if Esca has only asked him to beg so that he might be tormented with more denial. And then he cries out as Esca's hand tightens around him, just a little too hard for his pleasure.

"Don't play the shy maiden with me; you're not very convincing at it."

"I—" Marcus chokes on the words.

Esca raises his voice, and the command is adamantine: " _Beg for what you want,_ damn you."

"Suck me," Marcus rasps harshly. " _Please._ "

His eyes are shut tightly. He hears Esca catch his breath, then feels him move downward once more. And suddenly his cock is in a vortex of heat and soft slickness, a tongue caressing its underside, a throat working against its tip.

He realises he's moaning loudly and that maybe half of what he utters is actual words. Strong hands pin his hips to the cloak-bed; he realises, too, he's trying to thrust, he can't stop himself. But Esca sucking him is, as always, another way of Esca taking him, not the other way round.

He hears a suppressed moan, feels it vibrate around his imprisoned cock, and — _oh, gods_ — it's just the sensation that will tip him over the edge… but sudden his cock is no longer imprisoned, and Esca is crawling upward again to rest his face against Marcus's.

"No… no…" Marcus's voice is beyond hoarse now, guttural. "Esca, _please,_ please let me spend, make me spend, I want it so badly…"

Esca closes his eyes briefly, then kisses Marcus, deeply and tenderly, a hand holding either side of Marcus's head. Again Marcus tastes himself in Esca's mouth.

"Would you like me to fuck you, Marcus?"

"Oh, gods, yes, please…"

Esca doesn't bid him to beg this time, merely stares down into his face with hot and darkened eyes, tracing his lips with a finger, softly now, until Marcus whimpers. This, too, is a command.

"I can't… just… fuck me, Esca. _Please._ Fuck me."

His own breath coming quickly now, Esca rises. Marcus lifts his head and watches him retrieve the flask from the low flat stone, setting it down just to the left of the cloak-bed. Then, in a handful of simple, graceful movements, Esca sheds his clothes and boots, leaving them in a pile alongside Marcus's. His cock is as dark-red as wine and nearly flat against his belly as he kneels between Marcus's splayed thighs. He pours a measure of oil out into his cupped palm, closes his hand slightly to wet his fingers, then — as gently as when they first lay together by the stream — rubs one slickened fingertip against the opening to Marcus's body, teasing, caressing. Then he presses inward.

Marcus is now able to lift his hips, and he does, this time not to bury himself further in Esca but to draw Esca further into him. A second finger joins the first, and suddenly they're stroking the place inside Marcus that makes him sob and shake as pleasure uncoils in his belly and loins, pleasure that is also torment because he knows it alone will not bring him over his edge.

And then he is empty, and then, once again, he is not. Esca has slid into him to the hilt, and Esca's face is above his own, eyes heavy-lidded, mouth open in a gasp. The fingers of his dry hand dig into Marcus's right shoulder. He lowers his head again to kiss Marcus relentlessly, almost savagely, as he begins to thrust.

Marcus returns the kiss with passion, his tongue curling hard against Esca's, straining upward from the cloaks as far as the ropes permit to open himself completely to Esca. "Gods… yes, like _this_ …" he gasps as he breaks the kiss to draw breath, and he hears an answering moan. Esca's ragged breaths are warm against Marcus's forehead as he tells him in British how beautiful he is, how good he has been, how much Esca loves him.

He is thrusting hard now, nearly throwing himself against Marcus with each thrust. Suddenly Marcus can feel a tremor begin in Esca where they come together, rising through his torso and into his arms.

"I… promised you…" Esca gasps. He angles himself slightly upward and back on his knees, continuing to fuck Marcus without pause. His right hand, still covered in oil, disappears between their bodies.

Marcus cries out and shudders convulsively as he feels Esca's hand circle his cock, squeeze, slide up and down the shaft and over the head and back down again, over, and over, and over. He is absolutely helpless, he is utterly full, he is completely enveloped, and Esca's thrusts and Esca's touch will pull him, even if he were to resist it, straight over the edge —

— and it's as though iron has molten in his belly and is shooting hard out of his cock, scalding him where it lands. He hears his own voice, one long tremulous cry of ecstasy, of relief, of awe. And then Esca answers it with his own, deeper, rougher, but with the same note of wonder, as if they were gods creating a world between them — and collapses on top of Marcus, face to chest, panting, shaking. His cock twitches and flutters inside Marcus as they both subside.

The inside of the roundhouse seems to shimmer. A brief memory descends upon Marcus: himself as a boy, lying on a hillside in Etruria, lost in the night sky. It fades, and no words nor images come to his mind for a while… until he feels Esca's hands on his left wrist and hand, a flat coolness between his skin and the rope, and then no rope at all. Esca gently chafes the freed hand, the slight soreness that winds round Marcus's wrist.

Marcus lifts his head to see Esca kneeling at his side, eyes full of astonishment, solicitousness, adoration. Marcus thinks he could fall into those eyes right now and never come up. He turns his hand in Esca's grasp so that he holds both of Esca's, if only by the fingertips.

"Do you not want me to undo the rest?" Esca asks. The amusement in his voice is barely a shadow against everything else in it.

Marcus smiles back at him and matches his tone note for note. "You were the one who warned me that nothing would happen quickly today, _mi optio_."

They laugh, softly, and Marcus holds Esca's hands just a moment longer.


End file.
